Season 6 Discussion

[Mikeyboy9361]

Reg fee fine

Live events, don"t lose the team events they"re great, once a month was never gonna work for me, but the more events the more chance I had of playing! I agree that just 6 per year is a little on the low side, maybe fo for 8 or 9.

Prizes - as they are please, the chance to play in a big buy in event is a great incentive to most of us budget players.

[AJDUK]

Rather than this important question be buried down on page 38 of a perhaps tired (to some people) thread I think you should start a new thread along the lines of "important last minute decisions being considered....feedback required" or something snappier!!

[Robbiebox]

If cuts have to be made I personally would rather it benefits more and come off the added winners prize ( eg WCOAP seats instead of GUKPT) rather than introduce a reg fee, but I"m not too fussed ~ I think only those who know the total financial picture can make this decision.

Im with Mikeyboy and figure the more events the greater chance of playing. Get big venues toward the center of the country and you will always sell out, nothing against Plymouth/Aberdeen etc but the more remote the less chance of people travelling that far for a £75 game.

The WCOAP is a great event and it would be a gamble to move or add another, but if you think it can be pulled off then go for it ~ Could be great !

Team events are fun, bring in new members to our live games, so please keep these but dont make them exclusive.

[AceOnTheRiver]

My thoughts on this:

Reg Fee - It"s all down to personal views and circumstances but the addition of a Reg Fee wouldn"t stop me playing at an APAT event. Reg Free may be APAT's USP but what is that USP achieving?

Scheduling - I can see where you are coming from but 6 events really isn"t enough especially if 6 includes The Irish, Scottish & Team events as it"s really a hardcore that travel (particularly to the Irish) and not everyone can play the team event. A lot of previous posters seem to be landing on 9 and that feels about right; I"d like to see a 6-weekly scheduling including (Random order) English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, UK, Euro, WCOAP, Team +1 other.

Would the Festival idea really take off? It depends what the Friday get together entails. If it"s a "special" tourney at the casino on Friday night with a bit of added value, then maybe? Seats in events the following day could be added to the top "x" finishers. If you have already bought in, as most will have, then you at least you will be free-rollin" plus any cash you win in the tourney. It would add and extra impetus should events sell out also.

To get the Festival feel, please vary the Sunday sides whenever possible - i.e. not always PLO

I personally do not like the "online Thursday"s" idea. People committing their weekends are unlikely to want to give up Thursday nights as well. I like the Online Championships being on weekends as they currently are.

Added Value is the cherry on top - not a reason to play APAT but a bonus. Although I would never have played a GUKPT so far were it not for APAT.

[AceOnTheRiver]

Rather than this important question be buried down on page 38 of a perhaps tired (to some people) thread I think you should start a new thread along the lines of "important last minute decisions being considered....feedback required" or something snappier!!

It"s hardly buried Andy - Surely those who care enough to have a strong opinion are monitoring the thread for new posts  

..... as you & I have clearly done in the last few minutes  

[AJDUK]

My thoughts on this:

Reg Fee - It"s all down to personal views and circumstances but the addition of a Reg Fee would stop me playing at an APAT event. Reg Free may be APAT's USP but what is that USP achieving?

You mean wouldn"t right?

[AJDUK]

Rather than this important question be buried down on page 38 of a perhaps tired (to some people) thread I think you should start a new thread along the lines of "important last minute decisions being considered....feedback required" or something snappier!!

It"s hardly buried Andy - Surely those who care enough to have a strong opinion are monitoring the thread for new posts  

..... as you & I have clearly done in the last few minutes  

Actually I nearly never read it. I thought everything that could be suggested about season 6 had been said already. Hence my suggestion.

[AceOnTheRiver]

My thoughts on this:

Reg Fee - It"s all down to personal views and circumstances but the addition of a Reg Fee would stop me playing at an APAT event. Reg Free may be APAT's USP but what is that USP achieving?

You mean wouldn"t right?

Yes I do   (that"s the embarrassed smiley btw)

Will edit my post

ty

[duke3016]

Reg fee - no problem

Schedule - No problem - go with the flow

Added Value - I did laugh at the absurdity of this being a factor in my case  

[AceOnTheRiver]

Actually I nearly never read it. I thought everything that could be suggested about season 6 had been said already. Hence my suggestion.

Soooooo.... how did you come to read it..... if you read it...... on that thread you don"t read    

[AJDUK]

It is likely that the opening weekend of season 6 will be either Feb 25th & 26th or Mar 31st & Apr 1st.  Discussions are  ongoing so don"t shoot us if things change please.  But I"m using the Feb dates for my planning purposes atm.

Can I make other plans for this weekend?  

[AJDUK]

Actually I nearly never read it. I thought everything that could be suggested about season 6 had been said already. Hence my suggestion.

Soooooo.... how did you come to read it..... if you read it...... on that thread you don"t read    

Sigh. The house is on fire.

[Des]

It is likely that the opening weekend of season 6 will be either Feb 25th & 26th or Mar 31st & Apr 1st.  Discussions are  ongoing so don"t shoot us if things change please.  But I"m using the Feb dates for my planning purposes atm.

Can I make other plans for this weekend?  

What type of gun do you have there Andy?  

[AJDUK]

It is likely that the opening weekend of season 6 will be either Feb 25th & 26th or Mar 31st & Apr 1st.  Discussions are  ongoing so don"t shoot us if things change please.  But I"m using the Feb dates for my planning purposes atm.

Can I make other plans for this weekend?  

What type of gun do you have there Andy?  

Water pistol. You"ll be fine mate

[Supernova]

As APAT prepare to annouce further season six details towards the end of this week, there are still a few decisions that we have yet to finalise.  I"m going to share these with you as they are very important and your feedback could tip the balance one way or another.

1)  Registration Fee

Whether to add a registration fee is the single biggest decision facing APAT at the moment. 

APAT has paid the registration fee of every player who has played a live Championship event with us over the past five years and I said earlier in this thread, that"s something that I"m very proud of.  However, the poker market is going through a very challenging time right now.  There is also a wealth of live options available to poker budget holders, who can often acquire players more competitively through google search campaigns and signup offers. 

As the owner of the APAT budget, I found myself in the strange position last year of wanting to run smaller tournaments later in the season to ensure we were able to make our budget work as hard as we could.  This is a conflicting position, because in requiring smaller number tournaments, we end up not promoting the events to our membership as a whole and clearly that"s a viscious circle we need to get out of. 

The addition of a 10% registration fee - which would go in its entirity to the venue to cover their costs - would enable us to promote our events hard again, and I feel that it is essential that we get back in growth mode.

What do you guys think, because if we go ahead with a reg fee, ultimately it"s going to cost you money when you play?

2)  Scheduling

For the past two seasons in particular, APAT has run a National Live event every month.  In my opinion it"s too much. 

I think it must be challenging for so many of our members to be able to travel and play on a monthly basis and similarly it is difficult to effectively promote as there is too much going to between the live events, online championship events, online league, not to mention satellites and direct buy in events. 

My view is that we should go to a Festival style weekend once every two months.  That gives us more time to run satellites and promote the events hard.  Over the festival weekend, I can see us having the Online Championship event on the Thursday night, a member get together on the Friday night, the main event over Saturday and Sunday, a live event on Saturday night, a live event on Sunday afternoon and a one table Cash Tour event over the weekend also.

3)  Winners packages

We"ve offered live professional event entries to all of our winners for the past five years.  An idea that we are considering is to offer the winner of every live and online event this year a World Championship of Amateur Poker passport, offering the main event and three side event entries.  Although the value of this prize may be a little less than a Genting entry for example, it feels like a great idea to me to have every Amateur and Online Champion together at the WCOAP, where we can also add the Awards night, and create something really huge.  What do you guys think?  

IMHO everything here makes perfect sense.

The market has changed, lets go with it (might like to consider the 15k starting stack also). Even with 10% juice, it"s still a very hard product to beat.

Bi-monthly Live events will hopefully promote more runners and more competition.

Passports are very worthy prize in their own right.

All in all, excellent.

+ 1 Although I"d like to keep the format (starting stack etc) as it is, it"s one of the things that make APAT what it is.